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Pros:

Cons:

Insufficient meat products, use of by-products, low quality grains and other controversial filler.

The first ingredient is by-products. It is impossible to ascertain the quality of by-products and these are usually products that are of such low quality as to be rejected for use in the human food chain, or else are those parts that have so little value that they cannot be used elsewhere in either the human or pet food industries. We recommend avoiding any pet food using such ingredients. The AAFCO definition of chicken by-product meal is “consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.”

The main grain in the food is rice. Brewers rice is a low quality waste product, while rice flour is a fragment. This is followed by corn, which is difficult for dogs to digest and thought to be the cause of a great many allergy and yeast infection problems.

Beet pulp is another controversial ingredient – it is a by-product, being dried residue from sugar beets which has been cleaned and extracted in the process of manufacturing sugar. It is a controversial ingredient in dog food, claimed by some manufacturers to be a good source of fibre, and derided by others as an ingredient added to slow down the transition of rancid animal fats and causing stress to kidney and liver in the process. We note that beet pulp is an ingredient that commonly causes problems for dogs, including allergies and ear infections, and prefer not to see it used in dog food. There are less controversial products around if additional fibre is required.

Fish meal is the sole named meat ingredient in the food, but at 6th on the ingredient list does little to raise the overall meat content of the food. We can find no sign of a guarantee on the manufacturers site that this ingredient is ethoxyquin-free (ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative commonly added to fish meals and that is banned from use in human food because it is believed to be carcinogenic).